Monday, 26 September 2016

Some cracks in the MSM Hillary narrative

Here
in my favourite American small town, I detect a strange, ominous
feeling of approaching danger. Something has gone wrong with the USA.

I
first came to Moscow, Idaho, eight years ago when the great Obama
frenzy was at its unhinged peak. This is a divided place, traditional
rural conservatives living alongside a Left-wing university campus,
but in 2008 they coped with their deep divisions in the usual way.

People
disagreed, but they did it politely and openly, and were ready to
accept the result even if they did not like it. Almost every front
lawn had its partisan placard.

Now
politics has gone underground in an almost sinister way. I searched
the town’s pleasant suburbs for a Trump or Clinton poster and found
none, only a single defiant declaration of support for America’s
Jeremy Corbyn, the Left-winger Bernie Sanders, who long ago quit the
race.

I
lived through the Cold War and never believed we were in real danger.
But I genuinely tremble at the thought of Mrs Clinton in the White
House

Republican
headquarters in Main Street until recently contained posters
supporting lots of the party’s candidates for local office, but
none at all for Donald Trump. Last week they finally managed to
mention his name, but you have to look carefully for it in their
window.

Democrat
HQ, almost directly opposite, is nearly as coy about Hillary Clinton.

In
private conversations (the only sort where people will say what they
really think), you find out what this means. Democrats are holding
their noses over Hillary because they despise her and wish she wasn’t
their candidate.

But
many Republicans are stifling their genuine enthusiasm for Trump,
because – in small towns like this – they don’t want to annoy
or alienate neighbours who may also be customers, clients, patients
or employers.

Of
course there are conservatives, usually serious Christians, who
loathe and mistrust Donald Trump and see him for what he is – a
balloon of noise and bluster which will one day burst in a terrible
explosion of disappointment and regret.

But
they have been swept aside by the great carnival of resentment and
revenge which has carried Trump past all the obstacles and restraints
that are supposed to prevent such people getting near real power. For
Trump is the anti-Obama – emotional, irrational, a spasm.

Those
who had to sit, grinding their teeth, through all the long-years of
Obama-worship, now hope for their own matching hour of gloating.

And
we really ought to recognise that rejoicing over the woes of your
enemies is one of the greatest sinful pleasures in life. Few will
turn down the chance.

I
can see no good outcome of this. Adversarial politics are a good
thing, but only if both sides are ultimately willing to concede that
their rivals are entitled to win from time to time. But that attitude
seems to have gone. Now the rule is that the winner takes all, and
hopes to keep it if he (or she) can.

A
narrow defeat for Trump will poison the republic. Millions of his
supporters will immediately claim fraud at the polls, and nothing
will convince them otherwise. The bitterness of the Florida ‘hanging
chad’ episode of 2000 will seem like brotherly love compared with
that fury.

A
victory for Trump – decisive or narrow – will give astonishing
powers to a lonely, inexperienced, ill-educated old man who (I
suspect) is increasingly terrified of winning a prize he never really
intended or expected to obtain.

A
clear victory for Hillary Clinton would create even greater problems.
Educated, informed people here believe that there are serious doubts
about her health. Even if they are wrong, her militant
interventionist foreign policies are terrifying.

I
lived through the Cold War and never believed we were in real danger.
But I genuinely tremble at the thought of Mrs Clinton in the White
House. She appears to have learned nothing from the failed
interventions of the past 30 years, and scorns Barack Obama’s
praiseworthy motto: ‘Don’t do stupid stuff.’

She
will do stupid stuff, and drag us into it, you may rely upon it.

How
odd it is, to hear on the air the faint but insistent sound of coming
war, here in this place of sweet, small hills, rich soil and wistful,
mountainous horizons.

Men
came here in search of what we all really desire, to be left alone to
get on with the really important aims of life, to build a home and
raise a family, to see the fruits of their labour, to believe what
they wish to believe.

I
cannot quite work out how the good, sane impulse that gave birth to
the USA could possibly have led us to this nightmare choice between
two equally horrible outcomes.

I
shall just have to carry on hoping that I am wrong.

Are we be being prepared for something?

Democrats
quiet on their support for Clinton

One
would expect voters from the heavily Democratic Brooklyn
neighbourhood of Cobble Hill to pick presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton in the November general election. Just don't expect them to
advertise it.

Like
lawns and windowsills in liberal pockets across the country, much of
the neighbourhood is bereft of pro-Clinton signage in the final weeks
before the election. It's a stark contrast to the 2012 and 2008
campaigns, when President Barack Obama whipped up a frenzy of support
from Democrats and his signature "Hope" and "Forward"
signs were ubiquitous.

The
scarcity of lawn and window signs is an indication of the Democratic
nominee's struggle to generate enthusiasm among left-leaning voters,
a challenge that's borne out in polling data, and could potentially
haunt her if voters fail to turn out on election day.

Clinton
leads Republican challenger Donald Trump by four percentage points
among likely voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released
Friday.

But
Americans of all political stripes have been more critical of Clinton
than they were of Obama when he was running for his second term four
years ago, according to the daily tracking poll.

Among
Democrats, 78 percent say they have a favourable view of Clinton,
lower than the 89 percent favorability rating Obama had at this point
in the race in 2012. Clinton's favorability drops to 28 percent among
independents versus Obama's 47 percent.

Nancy
Kimmel Viola, a 63-year-old social worker who lives about a mile away
from Clinton's campaign headquarters in Brooklyn, keeps a "Bernie
2016" sticker taped to the front door of her Carroll Gardens
home, a vestige of her support for the unsuccessful bid of Sen.
Bernie Sanders. While she plans to vote for Clinton, she confesses
that her "heart's not in it."

"I
have to vote for her." Viola said. "Having Trump in there
is too scary."

In
Denver, residents in the Democratic stronghold of Park Hill posted
many yard signs over a local zoning issue, but few for the
presidential race.

"Most
of us around here will vote Democratic, we always do, but we're not
overly enthusiastic for Clinton," said resident Pablo Marron.
"But we are united in our opposition to Trump."

'Hold
your nose'

In
the heavily Democratic Denver suburb of Northglenn, banners for local
office-seekers littered a major roadway, but there were no
accompanying Clinton signs. In the affluent liberal Washington DC
suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland, signs for the Democratic nominee
appeared only roughly once every 10 blocks.

The
lack of enthusiasm isn't just hitting the Clinton campaign. Americans
from both major parties say they are generally less interested in
voting this year than they were in 2012, according to the
Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, which compared results gathered during
the first 20 days of September with the same period of 2012.

The
Clinton campaign did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

Clinton's
online store displayed roughly a dozen different signs and banners
for sale, ranging from an 11-inch by 17-inch sign, sold at $10 for a
pack of two, to a four-foot by six-foot "Hillary for America"
banner, which retailed for $100.

Sales
data was not immediately available and a request for comment from the
store went unanswered.

For
some, there is a "hold your nose quality" to this election,
said Matthew Dallek, associate professor at George Washington
University's Graduate School of Political Management.

The
lack of signage in liberal enclaves may indicate, Dallek said, "that
there just isn't this sort of enthusiasm that existed for Obama."

But
there are some blocks that buck the trend.

On
a street in Gowanus, Brooklyn, no fewer than four homes bore
pro-Clinton signage, including a life-size cutout of the Democratic
nominee, which rests in the windowsill of retired lawyer Chris
Morrison's home. The beaming cardboard Clinton prompts many passersby
to take pictures, said Morrison, a staunch Clinton supporter.

"You
don't see as much signage this time around. In this neighbourhood I
don't get so concerned (because everyone is) more or less on the same
page," said Morrison, 66.

1 comment:

I live very close to Moscow, Idaho. And the author totally missed the reason why things have gotten "quiet". It is because we Americans are faced with truly terrible choices this (s)Election. Both Clinton and Trump are not fit for the job they're vying for. Both will make absolutely disastrous mistakes because of their ignorance, incompetence and arrogance. Both have and will divide the country even further. THAT is why we are deeply concerned. We can live with our neighbors and even tolerate their stupidity. Both sides know that this (s)Election is a total disaster for the country, there will be no winners, no victors, no rejoicing six months down the road.